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Blog Posts: WRI India

"Today, as negotiators haggle over the details of a climate agreement in Paris, my home town in southern India is literally underwater," says Arivudai Nambi Appadurai, WRI India's Adaptation Strategy Head for Climate Resilience Practice. "Chennai has seen 17 days straight of rain, precisely the kind of extreme weather event that experts say will only become more common in a warming world."

The great twin challenges of the 21st century — development and climate change — are nowhere sharper than in India, and within India they are perhaps nowhere more vivid than Mumbai. So it’s appropriate that WRI India has its largest office in the rapidly transforming former industrial core of India’s largest, richest city.

India has set ambitious renewable energy targets for this year of 175 gigawatts by 2022, an increase of 400 percent over 2014. But even as India looks to add new wind and solar plants, it is working to absorb the renewable power it already generates.

Rainfed agriculture sustains millions of farmers in India, meeting 40 percent of India’s food demand. But the impact of a changing climate, including increased droughts and rising temperatures, threatens food production and farming patterns.

Understanding how to curb global climate change first requires knowing where the world’s emissions are currently heading. The new CAIT Projections module provides access to emissions projections for major emitters through the year 2100.

As Michael Bloomberg announces a package of assistance on road safety through Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Global Safety Initiative, here is an ugly truth: more people die in road crashes in India than anywhere else in the world.

The new U.S.-India agreement on climate change will help turn India’s bold renewable energy targets into reality.

Rather than relying on one major plank, the collaboration is a comprehensive set of actions that represent a substantial step in advancing low-carbon development in India while also promoting economic growth and expanding energy access.

Last month India pledged to increase national solar generation capacity to 100 gigawatts (GW) by 2022, but connecting solar projects to the country’s grid has been difficult in the past and could limit progress toward the new goal. Fortunately, an innovative decision by the Indian state of Karnataka may show how to solve the problem.